Buddha�s Path to Peace

This is an article that appeared in Vesak Sithivili in 1991

By Alec Robertson

The World is surely in need of the message of universal peace and tolerance and loving kindness so that all may live together in perfect peace and harmony like brothers and sisters. Is it practically possible to have peace and radiate thoughts of loving kindness when we are threatened with deadly and devastating weapons. Can we avert such a catastrophe?

Genuine happiness and peace

Peace and loving kindness, tolerance and patience, compromise and consensus preached in Buddhism are the only answer to such deadly bombs and devastating weapons when one is faced with inexorable death. If all war-like nations could be prevailed upon to practise loving kindness is place of producing destructive weapons of materialism, and rule the world not with tyranny and brute force but with justice and love then only would there be genuine happiness and peace in this world.

Beacon Light

Throughout a period of over two thousand five hundred years, Buddhism, has been a religion of peace and tolerance. The benign influence of the Buddha�s immortal message has permeated the hearts and minds of suffering humanity like a beacon light in the shifting sands of time.

To the unique credit of Buddhism it could be said that not a drop of blood has been shed in the propaganda of its sublime and noble teachings. No mighty monarch has wielded his powerful sword to propagate the teachings, and no conversion has been made either by force or by repulsive methods.

Buddhism spread through its own intrinsic merit and unsurpassing beauty. The doctrine is saturated with the spirit of free inquiry and complete tolerance. It is indeed the teaching of the open mind and the sympathetic heart.

The Buddha�s incomparable love, blazes forth like the rays of the glorious sun and sheds its benign glow on all beings alike, without any invidious distinction whatsoever.

In fact every morning and in the afternoon the Blessed One attained to the ecstasy of great compassion (Maha Karuna Samapatti) and extended His boundless compassion to all beings and surveyed the world with His Divine Eye to see to whom he could render spiritual consolation and assistance. This He did throughout His long dispensation of forty-five years, which is indeed unique in the annals of history. This noble sentiment is graphically and eloquently expressed by the Buddha in the following terms:

�Monks whatever kinds of worldly merit there are, all are not worth one sixteenth part of the heart deliverance of loving kindness, in shining and beaming and radiance, the heart deliverance of loving kindness far excels them just as whatever light there is of stars, all is not worth one sixteenth part of the moon�s light, in shining and beaming and radiance the moon�s light far excels it; and just as in the last month of the rains in the autumn when the heavens are clear the sun as it climbs the heavens drives all darkness from the sky with its shining and beaming radiance and just as, when night is turning to dawn, the morning star in shining and beaming and radiating so too, whatever kinds of worldly merit there are, all are not worth one sixteenth part of the heart deliverance of loving kindness; in shining and beaming and radiance the heart deliverance of loving kindness far excels them�. (Itivuttaka 27).

Sri Nehru eloquently bears testimony to the sentiments expressed above, when he says �Humanity has to choose today between the message of the Buddha and the hydrogen bomb. There is nothing in between to choose from. I have enough faith in me to bow my head down when the Buddha�s name is mentioned.

It is rather easy to talk and even to act in the international sphere and it is more difficult to face problems nearer home; But unless the message of the Buddha is applied in the national and domestic field it might not be capable of application elsewhere. The path which the Buddha and Asoka had shown has not been forgotten and has somehow remained in the mind of India�. Mahatma Gandhi followed the same path in our life time and by following that path the prestige and the strength of the nation was raised.

�It will be an error to regard the message of peace and non violence of the Buddha, as something only to be talked about with no connection with our everyday affairs. The message is not only to be confined to saints only but has to be related to our everyday life. Non-violence practised by us will give us strength in our day to day work, if any question has to be considered it has to be considered peacefully and democratically in the way taught by the Buddha�.

It was this immortal message of peace and happiness that was introduced to this sacred isle by Arahat Mahinda.

Concept of peace

One of the exalted appellations of the Buddha is Santiraja or the Prince of peace, and the path leading to the ultimate bliss of Nibbana is known as the santimagga (the path of peace) and above all the transcendent reality, Nibbana, is described as santi-peace; in fact the concept of peace occupies a pre-eminent place in the teachings of the Buddha.

The whole of the Buddha�s teaching is permeated and saturated with the spirit of peace, compassion and happiness. The leading of the good life, indeed should be in conscience with peaceful and harmonious livings (sama cariya) with one�s fellow beings. And it was for this purpose that the Buddha for the first time in the known history of mankind established the kingdom of righteousness (dhamma-chakkam) for the good and happiness of mankind and further after the establishment of the kingdom of righteousness the Buddha before long succeeded in enlightening sixty disciples and decided to send them as messengers of peace, requesting that no two of them were to go in the same direction. They were to preach the dhamma which is glorious in the beginning, glorious in the middle, and glorious in the end. The keynote of that message was peace and goodwill and happiness to all mankind.

To be continued next week